for loop shell script syntax error: unexpected word (expecting "do")

Question

#!/bin/sh PRO="a t d e k " for file in $PRO do #this will be line 6 echo $file done

output: line 6: syntax error: unexpected word (expecting "do")

You probably have DOS line endings in your file, so that the shell sees `do\r` instead of `do`. — chepner, Apr 05 '17 at 12:14
@chepner, yes .. found a ^M when i opened it in vi editor. It helped me to solve it. Later used the dos2unix command by referring to http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/dos2unix1.html — Rahul M Ashlesh, Apr 07 '17 at 06:22
Possible duplicate of [Are shell scripts sensitive to encoding and line endings?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/39527571/are-shell-scripts-sensitive-to-encoding-and-line-endings) — tripleee, Apr 07 '17 at 06:29
As an aside, why would you put the loop tokens in a string variable in this case? `for file in a t d e k; do` doesn't seem less legible or maintainable at all, and has the distinct advantage that you can have file names with metacharacters etc in them, too (just quote them properly, of course; which you cannot easily do if they have to be in a string). — tripleee, Apr 07 '17 at 06:29

Rahul M Ashlesh · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-20T09:15:39.687

0

Found a ^M when i opened it in vi editor. It helped me to solve it.

so it was some thing like this when i opened it in vi editor

for file in $PRO
   do^M                           
       echo $file
   done^M

Later used the dos2unix command by referring to computerhope.com/unix/dos2unix.htm

edited Nov 20 '17 at 09:15

answered Apr 07 '17 at 06:24

Rahul M Ashlesh

1 Answers1